I need help with greyscale and pale skin

[Yuurena]

Hello everyone, I am new to greyscale digital coloring, and I know that the greyscale mixes the flat color with black. Now the clothes and all look great, but when it comes to skin, the paler it is, the more blackish and unnatural it looks once I apply greyscale to it (in the sense that the contrast between the two colors make it look like the skin of a dead person). I was wondering how I can go about to make the skin look redder and livelier. I looked it up in google and youtube, but no one seemed to address the problem. In the picture attached is an example of how the skin looks with greyscale (note how messy it is as I kept mixing colors to make it look redder)
EDIT: Thank you all so much I can't even describe how helpful and insightful this has been I'll make sure to put your great advice into even greater use!

Am I just approaching it wrong? Help me out

[IndigoShirtProd]

Do you mean that when you color you start first with the values, black to grey to white, and then you go over it with color? Here's a video of another digital painter that works like that:

It's not specifically a tutorial video, more of a process video but I know they work from grey scale to color.

From my perspective, whenever an art piece is painted from greyscale to color, they usually look a little darker and less saturated than if it's painted from color from the start. So in my opinion, if you want things to look livelier and more saturated, I would recommend working from color at the start and then regularly check your values so that they don't look muddy.

[Yuurena]

Yes, I make a layer with flat colors, and then another layer above (or below it) with the Multiply feature and I shade the sketch with shades of grey. But the thing is, from the tutorials I've seen, the pale skin still looks lively and red even though it was done with greyscale but I do agree that art done with greyscale is generally darker. Is there a way to mix direct coloring and greyscale coloring? Anyway, I'll check out the video you sent me, thank you so much for your insightful response!

[IndigoShirtProd]

I shade the sketch with shades of grey.

So you shade the sketch with grey and then you do the lineart? Can you walk me through your process from start to finish, if that's not too much to ask?

Is there a way to mix direct coloring and greyscale coloring?

So generally, I'm pretty sure other artists who shade in greyscale first use a colored blending layer, from hat I've seen "Color" and "Overlay" are common, over their grey shading. I think instead of relying on the Multiply layer to darken the colors, you shade with darker shades of grey where things do get darker.

[Yuurena]

Of course! sorry if I wasn't clear.
So First I have a layer for the lineart. Under it, I create another layer with flat colors. After that I create another layer (which is a duplicate of the flat color layer) (I usually set it above the flat colors and beneath the lineart) I set it to multiply and whiten it to the max using the luminosity filter. That way, it looks invisible. I lock it so my coloring won't exceed the original limits, and I shade it entirely in greyscale (using different shades of grey, clear grey, dark grey, etc.) While doing this, usually I hide the flat color layer so it wouldn't distract me. After I am done I open it again. Yesterday I experimented with two different skin tones. While the slightly more orange skin tone looked normal with greyscale, the pale one looked almost deathly

Here it is, I hid all the other layers so you'd see it at only the main shading level.

This is the greyscale version along with the layer order on the left. Don't mind the hidden ones

[cookieroach]

This question reminded me of this video that talks about painting from grayscale to colour. I don’t know if this helps you, but it might be interesting:

[Yuurena]

Thank you, but I've seen many of these but they don't seem to address the problem of color rendering with greyscale I'll check it out tho!

[rajillustration]

If you use multiply on top of a gray layer, it's fine if the color you put on is saturated (like your greens and blues) but if you have a desaturated color, like you see in pale skin, it will always look gray. There isn't enough color-power in a desaturated color to compete with the gray, and the gray will win.

So what I would do is not use multiply for skin on a gray layer. Even if it is a saturated skin tone, that gray will betray you down the line (although I do have quite a bit of gray in my skin tones when I paint, I need to have control over that gray and I almost never use gray in skin in comics anyway because that requires me to paint it out like a portrait and that takes 5 ever)

So you can put down a layer set to "color" (that's the photoshop term don't recall what it is in clip, I hope it's the same) and paint color on the skin--and it will set the gray to that color. Then you can do a multiply layer on top to add more depth of color, and the base won't be as gray.

[Yuurena]

The layer set to "color" should be a duplicate of the base color layer? or just a new one? and by painting color on the skin, do you mean shading? or re-doing the colors of the flat layer?

[IndigoShirtProd]

After that I create another layer (which is a duplicate of the flat color layer) (I usually set it above the flat colors and beneath the lineart) I set it to multiply and whiten it to the max using the luminosity filter. That way, it looks invisible. I lock it so my coloring won't exceed the original limits, and I shade it entirely in greyscale (using different shades of grey, clear grey, dark grey, etc.)

How about instead of duplicating the flat color layer and then adding all these blending modes, you make the layer you shade in grey scale in a clipping layer, so it clips to the flat colors without you having to worry about shading outside the lines. The you can just shade with different values of grey. And afterward on a different layer over top the greyscale, you can use a colored blending layer. I wouldn't recommend turning this layer to multiply since your shading is already don in greyscale. Like I said before, Overlay and Color seem to be the favored blending layer in this case.

The layer set to "color" should be a duplicate of the base color layer? or just a new one?

No. There shouldn't be a secondary color layer used for the greyscale shading. A new and separate layer should be used alone fore the shading.

and by painting color on the skin, do you mean shading? or re-doing the colors of the flat layer?

I think they mean painting the colors in on a separate layer above the greyscale shading layer and not by redoing the flat colors.

[ninjashira]

In my opinion, using grey on a multiply layer will always make everything feel a little flat and a little grey. Rather than using a straight grey for your multiply layer shadows, I suggest you try using a very desaturated color complementary to your light source color. If your light source is yellow, do your shadows with a very desaturated grey-blue. If your light source is blue, do your shadows with a very desaturated grey-orange. It helps avoid the flatness and dullness that comes from using grey to shade, and helps figures feel more like they are part of their environment because they're affected by the lighting around them.

[Yuurena]

sorry I am a little confused layer-wise So I am going to recap:
If I understood properly, first I have the lineart layer, under it is a base color layer. Now above the base color layer, I should have a new layer set to 'color' in which I should paint color on the skin (I am still a little confused with this one. do you mean adding other colors to the base skin color, like red?) and above all these is the greyscale layer in which I shade and it's set to multiply (or overlay tho still didn't try overlay with a greyscale color)
(PS: thank you all, this is more insightful than all of the research I've done)

[Yuurena]

I am afraid I am not at that level yet I wouldn't know what colors to use depending on the lightsource. I usually lighten my drawings afterwards using gradation maps and overlay layers. but thank you!

[Darth_Biomech]

the most important part to remember is that shadows have color themselves, they aren't just darkening your flats. Technically it's because they're hit by all the diffused and reflected light from the surroundings, but for the purposes of the illustration, you can just approximate and simplify to a single color, blue-cyan for outdoor scenes for example (because of all the blue sky above). For skin, I found out that low-intensity purples work well.

[IndigoShirtProd]

I should have a new layer set to 'color' in which I should paint color on the skin (I am still a little confused with this one. do you mean adding other colors to the base skin color, like red?) and above all these is the greyscale layer in which I shade and it's set to multiply (or overlay tho still didn't try overlay with a greyscale color)

No, don't worry about being confused. This is very hard to explain without showing you. How about this:

Lineart layer

Color layer <---- this is layer where you would put your color for the shading that you can set to Overlay or Color or Multiply. So if yo wanted the skin to be red, this is where the red would go.

Greyscale shading layer <------ this can be clipped to the flat color layer but I wouldn't recommend setting to multiply.

Flat color layer

This is the order I was saying you could try.

[PaperHearts]

The color you picked for the hair is much more saturated than the color you used for the skin, which is why it looks so grey. Same thing with the first picture you posted. So either use a more saturated color for the skin, or a less saturated color for everything else.

I quickly colored this in as an example, as you can see it looks less grey. So I would suggest if you want to continue using this method to shade your pictures, to just try to pick better flat colors and match the saturation of everything.

[Yuurena]

Okay I'll give it a try! Thank you very much for reals I've been burning my braincells for this for a week now I hope I can show you the result after I do it

[rajillustration]

So I'm looking at your process to kinda get how it works, it's not one I've really done, so I was assuming that you started with grayscale and then added color to it, but it sounds like instead you are starting with color and then using a luminosity filter to turn the second layer white? I've never used this technique before, so forgive me, I thought you were using a different technique. Disregard what I said, because if you put a layer set to color on top of another color that isn't gray (since your color layer is on the bottom) it will just mess up your colors.

So, what I would do is instead of duplicating the color layer, to just use a clipping layer. That way you don't need to worry about luminosity at all. You can do a gray scale in this layer, but in a way where black is black and white is transparent. That way you can use "lock transparent pixels" to turn whatever gray in the layer into a warmer burgandy that won't alter your color layer or turn it gray.

The gray layer that I've seen people use is to map out where the ambient occlusion is. (in fact the artist, Nicholas Kole, does this a lot, so you should check out his twitter to see how he does it because he makes videos on his process.) "ambient occlusion." is wherever you have a place light cannot reach, that will be a shadow that is black and not the tint of a color.

It's not the same as a hard shadow cast from a light source, which will generally take on the tint of the sky or the warmth of skin (skin is quite warm!) because of reflected light.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Yea, you're welcome! And I can wait to se the result, hopefully it works!

[Yuurena]

Oh I see! Saturation difference never crossed my mind as the source for the problem I'll make sure to work with it now. And you're right, the skin looks less grey in your version, but I must ask, did you reduce the saturation of the hair or added the saturation of the skin?